A successful first year in the white house. Think we should get that tax bill out of committee and a civil rights bill passed from the house, and we should start in the senate and have a minimum of time. Lyndon johnson captured very well the promise of the first year, which is you are elected. You have a mandate working with the congress. As Lyndon Johnson said when he became president , no matter how big your majority, you get one year before congress stops thinking about you and starts thinking about themselves, their own reelection. In january of your second year, all the members of congress are thinking about midterm elections. They are cautious about taking any risks to help you get your mandate and agenda through. Which is why presents early on in the administration are eager to get something done. They feel this is a moment i will never happen again. They are also learning the ropes and not as experienced as they will be. This is why they make mistakes. This is why that first year, the first few months is so important in setting the agenda. Lobbyists and law firms and report onaders government in washington. I underestimated that. How did jimmy carter, who was like donald trump, an outsider, and that was why he was elected. In the postwatergate period, he was able to say i am not of washington. I am from georgia. I was a governor. I am never going to lie to you. I am a bornagain christian. He was able to separate himself from the mire of washington and watergate. Much as donald trump resented himself to the American People, saying i am not even a politician. What jimmy carter told us is he thought he would be fine in terms of his experience as a chief executive of the state. He had been in atlanta the governor of georgia. He said, when i got to washington, it was very different. I did not have any obligations to the people in washington for my election. Very few members of congress or the major lobbying groups or distinguished Democratic Leaders played much role in my election. Tie ofas not that campaign that ordinarily would have occurred if i was not able to win the nomination by myself. I think they felt they were on the outside. It is a cautionary tale for outsiders coming into the white house, but it is also a cautionary tale for thinking you know enough to get by in those first few months and realizing that you do not. First your project is an effort we have been working on for almost three years, since my arrival in january 2015, but even before that, about how we take our historical assets, the archives we have built through oral history and transcribing recordings,office the network of scholars and practitioners we are in touch with, and take the lessons of all of that history and project it forward to the current president. It is a series of case studies, but also a series of directed interviews with those people about the challenge of taking over the most important and hardest job in the world. Bushen when george h. W. Took over from ronald reagan, it was a hostile takeover. This was not an easy thing to do. They fired all the senior people because they wanted to put their own stamp on the president and executive branch. You bring in a new set of people, fresh perspective, new voices. Challenges, because no matter how experienced a team is, working together as a team they are not experienced. The have not been in that position before. There is promise, and there is peril. We have tried to capture those lessons of history. The first thing they have to do is rely upon trusted advisors. President s are human beings. They dont know everything. They have to learn from people around them. They have to find trusted advisors. This is a trap. The most trusted advisor of the new president is someone who got them elected, someone politically skilled, but not necessarily a National Security expert. This is attention. The new president has to let go of the political advisers who got him elected and find a team of very smart, experienced whate to educate him on are the main issues i am going to face . The choice of advisors is the most important thing a new president can do. One of the key things of building a team is making sure they Work Together. George w. Bush had a very experienced group of people around him. It was an allstar team in many ways. Colin powell, donald rumsfeld, and alisa rice. Condoleezza rice. One problem, they hated each other. That is not going to serve the president well if his team does not function well as a group. Those differences of opinion, style, personality only got greater as they were exposed in the midst of the crisis of 9 11. Finding a team that not only serves the president well but works well together is extremely difficult to do. There is an inevitable first year crisis, almost always something on the National Security side. Last night i ordered u. S. Military forces to panama. No president takes such action lightly. Bushseorge h. W. Administration, they had a crisis in october. He came in saying noriega had to go from office. He was a dictator in panama connected to the drug trade. For nearly two years, the United States and nations of latin america have worked together to resolve the crisis in panama. The goals of the United States have been to safeguard the lives of americans, to defend democracy in panama, to combat drug trafficking, and to protect the integrity of the panama canal trade. This is a pretty consistent refrain from president bush that he was going to see noriega go. Fromhear about a coup plot junior military officers in the noriega regime. There are different cabinet secretaries in that administration who had different reactions in whether or not they should get involved in that. The mixed signals ended up leading to a failed coup in panama. Now we have a crisis. We have a coup against someone present bush said should go. Different cabinet members responding firmly. President bush appears to have egg on his face. Cheney,lked to dick former member of the house of representatives, someone with experience,ington two different branches of government, and this is what Vice President cheney was pointing out to us. Think of the people who were surrounding george h. W. Bush. You had a retired general, colin powell, and dick cheney himself. He said, we had the 18 in Foreign Affairs, yet their first Foreign Affairs crisis was a coup in panama. Said, while we were a great group of individuals with a lot of experience Foreign Policy and defense policy, we had not worked together as a team yet. That took some time for us to get going as a team. He said, we made some mistakes. We learned a lot as a team how to work and function. One problem you have with any new administration, even one as experienced as ours we were not amateurs it is hard. There is no Training Ground or senior civilian political leaders in an administration. Team madew is if that mistakes, think how much harder it is for a president with no washington experience, no foreignpolicy experience, no defense policy experience, and no work in washington with the levers of power in the centers of power in the capital. We find ourselves groping to know the full sense and meaning of these times in which we live. In our quest of understanding, we deceive gods guidance and. Ome are knowledge of the past we bring all of our with and to answerts and will the question, how far have we come in mans pilgrimage from darkness to the light . Eisenhower was a soldier, so he knew you never knew what was around the corner. His plans areused worthless, but planning is everything. It means you dont know what is coming. You cannot see the future. You have to anticipate a variety of scenarios and plan around the possibility that five or six things may happen. Your team has to be in the habit of planning. They have to talk to each other. They have to have a plan for how they take intelligence, interpret it, and map out possible consequences. What will this mean for the budget . What will it mean for our military performance, nuclear deployments . They must always be planning ahead for a variety of scenarios so that if any one of them happens or something happens that looks a little bit like plan a, the present has the beginnings of a plan already in place. John kennedy. Everybody loves john kennedy. We think of him as an admirable and tragic figure. In his first you months, he made a serious mistake. Handlenot sure how to this great problem of cuba. He allowed a process that was already in place, the invasion of cuba to unfold. 1961. As april, let the record show that our restraint is not inexhaustible. Should it ever appeared that the inner american doctrine of noninterference merely conceals or excuses a policy of nonaction, if the nations of this hemisphere should fail to meet their commitments against outside communist penetration, then i want it clearly understood that this government will not hesitate in meeting its primary obligation, which are the security of our nation. What should he have done differently . He did not subject that plan to sufficient rigor. He did not go through this area is. He did not go through a long period of thoughtful analysis. He felt he needed to act bold. He felt he needed to show that he was a hawk, that he was an active president. He criticized eisenhower for being asleep at the wheel. He said invading cuba, that sounds like a bold plan. It was a fiasco. It was a disaster. Anyone looking at plans could have predicted it. Kennedy learned from that mistake. He ratcheted back his activism. He became significantly more restraint. He became much more wary of preexisting plans. A had such a disaster in his first year with the bay of pigs that he decided in the midst of the cuban missile crisis, i need to make a record of this. I need to have what i said to my advisors. Hiseported himself in telephone conversations and meetings. The secret kind close doors behind closed doors meetings he had in the midst of the cuban missile crisis, you get here. One of my favorites is a phone conversation he had with former president eisenhower. He calls him in the midst of the cuban missile crisis to say, what should i do . Am i doing the right thing . [indiscernible] they take any spot in the world. They dont care where it is. You in such a place [inaudible] they get to and they probe. When you cannot do anything, you another place, then they go ahead. I think you are doing exactly right. Let them know that you will not be the aggressor. You always have the right thing to determine it again. I will keep in touch with you, general. Thank you. He was hawkish. It is remarkable. The roles were reversed. Kennedy was arguing for more restraint. Eisenhower, he was a you have to go forth, and they cuba. Ofwas an incredible moment president s talking and learning from each other. It does not happen as often as it should in part because of Party Politics that get in the way. As all president s have said, nobody knows what the job is like except for another president. The present has to be thinking of what it is like in the first year. The most successful president s are those who take one or two points of policy and they make that case over and over again. As soon as they get into the white house, they hit the ground running, and they begin working on those two or three points of policy. Bill clinton was elected, and he got elected on the mantra it is the economy, stupid. I say this with great affection. I think he was a terrific president. Suddenly the military became the issue of the day because he answer a question in a press conference. The issue is not whether or not there should be on the essentials in the military. Everyone concedes there are. The issue is whether or not men and women who can and have served with distinction should be excluded from military service solely on the basis of their status. I believe they should not. Because he was not prepared for the politics of that and the governing challenges of that handrity, it came up off at a press conference, he ended up losing three months to that policy. Ronald reagan is another good example. We associate him with a major moment in American History because he resided over the beginnings of the end of the cold war. [applause] mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Elected toas increase defense spending, but he was elected principally on an argument that government should be shrunk and welfare should be transformed. The budget should be balanced. He was going to be a conservative in the white house. That was his ticket to victory. He wanted to focus on Domestic Affairs as well. Of course, the contrast with the carter years was dramatic. Well, he set out a goal at the beginning to end the cold war, tilde defense spending build up defense spending, and he did those things, and those defined his presidency. I will promise you as your president , i will raise the bar. Insist on accountability systems that refuse to leave children behind. We will put in place programs that will say we will give our children the Building Blocks to learn to read. We will challenge people to meet the high expectations. You mark my words what leadership can provide. It will provide an Education System that says we are not going to leave anybody behind. America will be better off for it. George w. Bush also had a very successful year after following the pattern of ronald reagan. Be very specific in your campaign about two or three things. Taxes,case, it was lower education reform, stand strong in the world but dont try to do regime change. These were several things he said in the campaign. He gets into office. What does he do . He reaches out to ted kennedy on the other side of the ill and political aisle and political spectrum, a liberal in the most liberal sense of the word. He invited ted kennedy and his family to the white house after the moderation. Inauguration. He said the new movie 13 days just came out about the cuban missile crisis, would you like to watch it . All these things were about this trust developing, this relationship, this common cause of can we get something done . They both have their own equities. They both believed they should do a better job of educating kids. Imagine the brother of president kennedy sitting there with president bush in the white house talking about how they wanted to Work Together on some big issues. Was it going to be health care, education reform . He started reaching out across the lines from the early days of the administration. George w. Bush was elected as a compassionate conservative. School reform is the one issue where he is going to make that mark. On september 10, the day before september 11, they had a white house summit on education policy. The next day, he flies down to florida and is doing an event at a school in florida reading to students. Of his eighticture whispering into his ear that america has been attacked. They remember that because of the attack on america. They dont remember it because he was trying to move education reform forward in a bipartisan way. While the president was in the school, Laura Kennedy and ted laura bush and ted kennedy were working on this legislation. Thats what they were trying to a cop bush and sure enough, in the 11th month of that administration, they were able to pass that these of legislation it into law. Thats a great example of a president reaching across party lines no way from the first weeks in office this is something he wanted to do even in a moment of crisis, sticking with it while they were planning to war in afghanistan respond to the 9 11 attacks. They are still moving forward with that legislation in a bar in a bipartisan way. Remarkably hadon to first years. He had the first year of his after the an assassination of president kennedy and once he helped the country get through the sadness and the grief over that, he began moving forward very quickly and by that next summer, president kennedy was assassinated in november of 1963, by july of 1964, Lyndon Johnson had passed through the house and senate, the 19 64 civil rights bill. Reelected by a landslide in november of 1964, he takes his official oath of office to become a president in his own right in 1965 and passes the Voting Rights act. Medicaid, medicare, the Great Society is up and running within that first year of his official presidency to which he was elected. Feels, if ididate can only be in the oval office and have my hands on the levers of power, i could turn this country around. What they find is constitutionally, the presidency is limited. That way. Ned its designed so the president cannot instantly put into place a dramatic change of governance. One, the personable change the ideology may change but the relationship with congress and the relationship with the courts, these things constrain residential power and very effectively. Add to that a large bureaucracy through which you have to drive your policy choices and you find that the president s power is constrained. There are moments early in a president ial term where you may feel you have a great opportunity. President obama passing the Health Care Bill, focusing on that in the first couple of years of his presidency is a textbook example. Its because he had a significant majority in the congress, he had the mandate of the people and he had a lot of popularity and he pushed through the Health Care Bill that he felt was going to be his legacy. Today, after almost a century after over aday, today, after all the votes have been tallied Health Insurance reform becomes law in the United States of america. [applause] whether you like the bill or not, its a great moment of president ial leadership because after he did that come his power began to weaken as it always does. We are done. [applause] one of the major pitfalls it seems to me in that first years inexperience. We have had a number of president s and recent years reacting to washington and presenting themselves to the part of the evil washington, not part of the mock and mire of daily politics. People coming had from governorship and have it reagan and carter and clinton and then we have had trump who we say has had no political experience in any city in the country or any state. So that this person is coming in with a fresh start. That is the good news for the American People who tend to view washington, if not evil, then corrupt. Thats a good thing for a person to be elected and run on that kind of platform. Its more problematic for governance. How quickly a president pivots from running for office, politicking, too governing can make all the difference in the world. Can they grasp the levers of power . Can they get what washington is about . Can they understand working with washington media . Can they understand working with capitol hill and how that actually will carry itself out . The first year is an especially vulnerable moment for new president s. All president s face crises all the time. Its nonstop crises one after the other when you were president but when you are right in the first year, you are at your most vulnerable. If something goes wrong in their first few months and their first year, and they may not yet have clear answers or have clear goals or they may not have a great team around them to deal with it. Moment whenar is a if something goes wrong, it can expose a new president s weaknesses or insecurity or inexperience. Is focused onter this first year moment as a way to gauge what can go wrong and what do you need to do to anticipate those problems. The other five things i would say to President Trump is focus , yoursonnel, process priorities, the politics of getting your priorities done, and how you communicate as a person, how you carry yourself as a person. Every president has failed in all five of those. Dont be too flustered by any particular failure. Its like to give a baseball. A 300 batting average will get you in the hall of fame. Learn from your failures and work with others to succeed. I would say that the problems are more difficult than i imagined them to be. The responsibility are greater than i imagined them to be and there are greater limitations upon our ability to bring about a favorable result than i had imagined them to be. I think thats probably true of anyone who becomes president because there is such a difference tween those who andse or speak or legislate from theho must select various alternatives proposed and say that this shall be the will of the United States. Its much easier to make the speech is that it is to finally make the judgment. Unfortunately, your advisors are frequently divided. If you take the wrong course and on occasion i have, the president bears the burden and responsibility quite rightly. The advisors may move on to new advisors. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] onlearn about other stops our tour. You are watching American History tv all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. Programssome of the this Holiday Weekend on cspan. Tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, a nasa briefing on the discovery of seven earthlike planets orbiting a nearby star. We are currently using the Hubble Space Telescope to study planets to determine if they have Hydrogen Helium dominated atmospheres. The pros and cons of genetically modified foods. Because those of us who do this, we think that all plants are gmos because there is nothing that you buy and an eager Grocery Stores whether its organic or conventional that has not been genetically modified. A. M. ,ter sunday at 10 30 the White House Easter Egg Roll event from the last four president s. Then a visit to the African History Museum in washington. I knew that the nation was searching for this museum but i have to confess, i did not know the reaction would be this positive and this strong. At 1 35 p. M. , a panel of federal judges discussed the history of the bill of rights. Is ist the bill of rights part of the whole constitution, a hugely important designation of fences, a division of power. Followed by a conversation with the Smithsonian Institution , the librarian of congress, and the archivist of the United States. Our collection is 156 million objects including 2 million books in 154 million other things. At 6 30 p. M. Eastern, president ial historian edna green medford, douglas brinkley, and Richard Norton smith discuss president to leadership. Thet is interesting that greatest american president , abraham lincoln, is bracketed by arguably the least successful american president. Sa. This Holiday Weekend on cspan. Next on American History tv, the university of virginia president ial scholar Barbara Perry discusses the trades that make a debt the traits that make a great president. Uses george washington, abraham lincoln, and fdr as examples of how great president s cultivated their leadership and one popular support. The mcco